With Wave 2 rapidly approaching, and the final battles of Wave 1 winding down, I thought it would be fun to do a little award thread for our vanguard. My opinions are my own, heavily influenced by the games I’ve played with my regular adversaries and the input they provided me when I went over this with them. I hope at the end some of you will post your own opinions as to what I got right, what I got wrong, and why. Ideally, I hope to provoke a fun discussion to help tide us over until Wave 2 stops shipping and starts tossin’ dice.

I considered doing an award for each upgrade type, and in other things keep it faction specific, but decided it narrowed the field too much in certain cases. Some things are lumped together in broader categories as explained below. Awards were given out based on efficacy, efficiency, common synergies and commonality of use. We are not weighing how well any particular ship, fighter, or upgrade may do in the future.

So without further ado, your Wave One Chewie awards!

1. Best Retrofit Upgrade (upgrades which fit in either the offensive or defensive retrofit slot)

Winner- Advanced Projectors . If the Xi7 errata had come a little earlier, maybe this would be a different story. As it was, for a vast majority of wave 1 this upgrade ruled the defensive retrofit slot, frustrating star destroyers everywhere by putting the ass in assault frigates. Honorable mentions to Expanded Hanger Bays and E.C.M.’s.

2. Best Crew Upgrade (generic officer, support or weapons team slots)

Winner - Gunnery Team . This one was a close call, as there are some really good choices out there over the three slots. Gunnery Team is my choice because of how strong it can be on both AFMK-2’s and VSD’s, and how often I saw it on both. It very narrowly beats out fine competitors such as Intel Officer and Engine Techs.

3. Best Faction Specific Officer Upgrade- (Officer Slot)

Winner - Admiral Chiraneau . Chirpy is expensive, and there are some other very good options out there, but he allows for some fantastic synergy with his fighters. Suddenly, those three A-Wings don’t lock down the Rhymerball, and Mauler Mithel tosses untold amounts of unavoidable snubfighter damage. Honorable Mentions to Raymus Antilles and Wulf Yularen.

4. Best Weapon Upgrade- (Ion Cannon, Turbolaser or Ordinance slots)

Winner- Assault Concussion Missiles . These things were in pretty much every single Imperial list, and for 7 points, why wouldn’t they be? The ships that can take them toss a good solid amount of black dice, and even if they weren’t getting the role protection of an Admiral Screed had the odds in the favor to add 2 damage that could not be mitigated by defense tokens to their rolls. Honorable Mention to Xi7 Turbolasers.

5. Best Squadron (Non Unique)

Winner- A-Wings . This has been talked to death, I think. Just so, so efficient for a fighter that is good in all phases of the game. It can go after fighters, it can go after ships. It’s super-fast. They helped win Worlds. Honorable Mention to B-Wings, who when they get into position really, really bring the hurt to capital ships.

6. Best Unique Squadron-

Winner- Major Rhymer. If you were bringing imperial fighters as more than a way of interfering with rebel ones, you were bringing Major ******* along for the ride. Just like in sports, a superstar makes everyone around him better, and that’s what Rhymer does. Honorable Mention to Tycho Celchu, who was practically auto-include for the Rebels.

7. Best Ship Title-

Winner- Demolisher . There were a ton of good titles in this wave, but Demolisher practically broke the game. Sidling up to a Rebel ship and dropping 4 black dice with ACM’s could be vicious, and in the early days had Rebel Admirals wondering if there even was a counter. May the force help you if she had initiative to boot. Eventually, we all learned how to mitigate her, but you can never really STOP her, you can only hope to contain her fury. Honorable Mentions to Yavaris and Salvation, both of which significantly enhance the efficacy of the love it or hate it Nebulon B.

8. Best Ship-

Winner- Assault Frigate Mark II- B. Fast and tanky with great side arcs, the AFMK2 was the backbone of the rebel fleet. At 72 points the B variant could serve as an effective carrier or simply as a difficult to bring down weapons platform, and was the ship that many rebel admirals turned to (HA! Get it?) to build around. Honorable Mention to the GSD-1.

9. Best Commander-

Winner - Admiral Screed . This was a toughie. I’ve used, and seen, all of the commanders used to great effect. There were really no duds. Screed is our Chewie Award winner because of his tremendous synergy with 3 of the 4 Imperial ship variants, and because he’s really well costed for what he brings to the table. Honorable Mentions to Garm and Mon Mothma.

So there you have it folks! What did the Academy get wrong? Where did it go right? What was unforgivably snubbed? Let us know down below.

my officer would be raymus.

my officer would be raymus.

Mine too. When building a Rebel fleet, the question always seems to be "where does Raymus go?" and never "do I include him?"

Raymus for me for sure if we're going faction-specific. Intel Officer if not.

Best weapon would be XI7. ACM is list, dice, color of dice, and range dependent.

I know what Raymus does, but I never seem to use him. ::shrug::

I think you got it spot on!!

However I would probably add a rebel title section and let yavaris have some glory for highest damage potential in the game

Also the Jar Jar Award goes to: "Point Defense Reroute!!"

For being so utterly useful I never once saw it used

Runner up goes to Engineering Team who I also never saw used but I thought about useing once so.... It doesn't get the reward

I think you basically nailed it Madaghmire. If the recent FAQ came out a little earlier, I would switch that Best Retrofit spot with Extended Hangars (narrowly edging out ECM's), and I think Tirion might have a good case with Raymus as the faction specific, but I'd go with the list as is.

Also liking Grand Admiral Clon's Jar Jar award notion too

Yeah I love the Jar-Jar award. I think that's pretty spectacular. I imagine I'll do this again for wave 2, and when I do, that will most certainly be a thing. Also Clon, I came really close to doing the separate faction awards for ship titles, and if I had Yavaris would certainly have won. Just this week a Yavaris enabled B-Wing dropped 6 damage on a VSD to finish it off for me. (Hit,Hit then Hit, Hit/Crit with Structural Damage). It was glorious. Same game a Yavaris enabled A-wing one shot two different TIE Interceptors on the same activation. She's a mean ship.

As for Raymus, I mean, that was a super close call for me. Practically a coin flip. My reasoning was, a lot of times I've used Raymus, I've used him to be a more expensive exp. hangers (Yavaris), to supplement Salvation, or on Tantive IV to toss tokens. But I sort of came to the conclusion that he's not really worth the points on Yavaris, I'd rather run Intel Officer on Salvation (combined with Xi7's its just a giant middle finger to VSD's) and I never seem to bring Tantive despite loving what it does in theory, because I think it best support deep dial ships. In which case I'm probably taking Garm and it seems redundant. So while in a vacuum, I love Raymus' effect and think he's strong and well costed, for the reasons listed above I just never wind up taking him. Chirpy makes his way into a lot of my Rhymer lists though, and I do love me some Rhymer. I went over this with some of my usual adversaries and they also pushed Chirpy, although they never really liked Raymus all that much.

HERO, man, I almost made turbolasers its own category JUST so I could give Xi7's a Chewie. I mean, I run those things all over the place. So I can't fault your reasoning at all. Judgement call, I guess, both are fantastic.

Great comments so far guys. I'm feeling pretty good that the alternatives so far were all honorable mentions.

Raymus for me for sure if we're going faction-specific. Intel Officer if not.

Best weapon would be XI7. ACM is list, dice, color of dice, and range dependent.

Not to mention side dependent only 2 of the 5 ships could take ACM

Not to mention side dependent only 2 of the 5 ships could take ACM

Yeah I feel like it might have been better to split the retrofits into defensive and offensive categories. I realize it means the "no duh" winner for offensive retrofit is Expanded Hangar Bays because Point Defense Reroute is "consider using this card as toilet paper" levels of awful, but an entire faction cannot use Defensive Retrofits in all of wave 1 so it just feels odd.

Yeah, most of these are good, but Chirpy? Not even in the running.

Raymus, Wulff, or maybe Intel Officer. Hell, I think Director Isard is really the only officer I saw less often...

Intel officer was in the crew category with the rest of the generic officers, so he wasn't competing with Chirpy. He probably would have won if I had done the generic officers with the faction specific ones. I heart him.

Ard, different meta's I guess. I saw him plenty, and he really adds a level of obnoxious to the most potent Imperial squadrons. I found myself wishing I had him when I flew rebels, and I never felt the same way about any of the Rebel officers as an Imp.

Excellent point on the ACM's being side dependent, and it was something I considered. Perhaps it should have been more heavily weighted, though. Part of my thought process though was pretty much any ship that could would take ACM's. You see them on every GSD, and a lot of VSD-1's (around here anyway). While Xi7's also see a lot of play, it doesn't dominate its slot the same way. I see Enhanced Armaments plenty on Guppies and the occasional flanking CR90. Warlord wants H9's. Its not really worth putting on a Neb not named Salvation (at least IMO. Your mileage may vary). So who's using it? Non warlord VSD's, Guppies and Salvation. So three out of five ships, one of which only if its running a specific title. So I don't feel that it necessarily makes sense to give it the nod based on ship spread, but the fact that its only imps using ACM's remains valid, and perhaps I should have weighted it more.

Snipa, I considered it, but it just watered down the competiton so much. I almost gave it to Exp Hangers if only because both factions could use it. Which I suppose is ironic given my reasoning on ACMs. Or maybe I'm consistent because I gave it to projectors. I dunno.

I'm a little surprised no one had called me out for not choosing a different commander. I mean, I feel good abouy Screed, but they are all pretty solid. I would also love to see other peoples lists using these, or their own, categories. Keep up the great posts gang.

Intel officer was in the crew category with the rest of the generic officers, so he wasn't competing with Chirpy. He probably would have won if I had done the generic officers with the faction specific ones. I heart him.

Yyyeeeaaaaahhh, I definitely missed that. Reading comprehension is for the weak. :/

I m going to throw some support behind chirpy over Raymus

My reason being that Raymus while good, never really Effects the outcome of the battle. He is more of General support, which is great and he is definitely considered in EVERY list but with Chirpy even though he is a little bit more situational, when he is put in a game he can really make the difference. Not only giving an edge but leading to TOTAL DOMINATION in the fighter game. Basically when he triggers properly(think 2 max fighters list) he has the potential to be one of the most influential cards in the entire game! Potentially even more impactful then your commander!! Which is somthing that Raymus just cannot claim.

As someone who has won 3 tournaments outright while useing him in my list during which I used his ability libreally (and never takeing anything less then 1st with him) I approve of his Chewie Award

You can't argue with screed

You can't argue with screed

Is Motti a dud? I do feel like he's overvalued.

What does Chewie have to do with this?

I don't agree with Chirry in the 1st place. I don't think I ever took him, but overall a very good summary.

I feel like Chirpy is too narrow. He's really good for what he does, but LOTS of lists, even with Squadrons, have no need for him.

In the future I'd suggest separate awards for the different factions for the uniques.

Screed far and away. The rebel Admirals are roughly equal in my book. I like Tarkin, but he won't truly shine till 400 points. I'm not a fan of Motti (I'd rather up offense than defense)

You can't argue with screed

you can if you don't play empire

******* Garm for life

Raymus > chirp-a-derp

Is Motti a dud? I do feel like he's overvalued.

My own personal experience is that Motti is not a dud. His main issue in wave 1 is he is by far the most cost-effective with larger ships and fleets made primarily of VSDs are slow and unresponsive. You can improve that somewhat with a Rhymer ball but it's not a very flexible fleet. Once you start including GSDs, which generally fix this problem, Screed is more tempting.

With ISDs coming out, I think Motti will get some more love. He's very cheap for the extra durability and bringing VSDs up to 10 hull and ISDs up to 14 makes them extremely difficult to destroy, often requiring an extra turn of work.

Is Motti a dud? I do feel like he's overvalued.

What does Chewie have to do with this?

I needed a name for the award. "The Chewies" just sounded good in my head.

Is Motti a dud? I do feel like he's overvalued.

What does Chewie have to do with this?

I needed a name for the award. "The Chewies" just sounded good in my head.

Because you let the Wookie win?